Montserrat

Provides vivid photographs of the beautiful island of Montserrat and its people.

Gallery Montserrat presents biographical sketches of persons whose lives and work have shaped the history and development of this British colony from its European settlement in 1632 to contemporary times. The mosaic of persons includes Leeward Island Governor William Stapleton, the philanthropist Joseph Sturge, pioneer trade unionist Robert W. Griffith, the island's first Chief Minister William H. Bramble, the martyrs of the 1768 rebellion, Wally Wade who went from minus to millions, and two women ministers of government. On the artistic side it features nineteenth century king of Redonda, M.P. Shiel, the poet Archie Markham, and Edgar White whose plays have been staged in Europe, the USA and several Caribbean countries. These are ostensibly isolated portraits but together they give a rich insight into an island story, its evolutionary struggles and triumphs and the culture of its people.

Montserrat is a small island territory in the Caribbean that was first settled by the Arawak and Carib peoples. The island was later colonized by the British, who established sugar plantations and brought in enslaved Africans to work the land. Montserrat gained independence from Britain in 1962 and remains a British Overseas Territory today. The island's history is also marked by the devastating effects of natural disasters, including hurricanes and volcanic eruptions. In 1995, the island's Soufrière Hills volcano erupted, forcing the evacuation of most of the population and causing widespread damage. Despite these challenges, Montserrat has a rich cultural heritage and is known for its music, including the traditional music called "scratch" and the modern style of soca. The island also has a thriving tourism industry, attracting visitors with its natural beauty and history.

Montserrat is a small island in the Leeward islands of the eastern Caribbean and at present a British Overseas Territory. It has suffered greatly in recent times, first from the devastations of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and since 1995 from the still-ongoing eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano that has caused two-thirds of the island’s population to emigrate and left half the island a dangerous exclusion zone. Archaeological research here began only in the late 1970s, but work over the past four decades has now made it possible to present an archaeological history of Montserrat, from the earliest known traces of human activity on the island about 5,000 years ago to the present. This book draws on all the available archaeological evidence (including that from the co-authors’ own island-wide survey and excavation project since 2010), as well as newly available archival documents, to trace this little island’s long history and heritage. This is not the story of an isolated and remote island: Montserrat is shown rather to be a place intricately connected to the flows of people and goods that have travelled between islands and across the Atlantic at various points in time, both Amerindian and historical. Despite its small size and seeming irrelevance, Montserrat has in fact always been networked into regional and global systems of connectivity. An underlying theme of this volume is resilience. It presents insights from the archaeological and documentary evidence on how the island’s inhabitants have coped with often adverse conditions throughout the course of its history – hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, slavery, disease, invasions, and impoverishment – all while remaining proudly connected to heritage that celebrates the accomplishments of island residents.

The 1995 to present eruption of Soufrière Hills Volcano on Montserrat is one of the most important and best-studied eruptions of an explosive andesitic volcano. This volume presents scientific findings from the period between 2000 and 2010; it follows on from Memoir 21, which focused on the early years of activity between 1995 and 1999. In addition to descriptions and analysis of the growth, collapse and explosions associated with lava domes, there are papers on the deformation of the volcano caused by the deep magma, the petrology and geochemistry of the lavas and associated gases. Of particular note are: an overview of the insights into the deep structure of the volcano that resulted from a major international seismic tomography experiment; and an analysis of the quantitative risk assessment process that has run now for most of the eruption, the longest such continuous assessment in the world.

This critical edition and translation of the Relaçam do Equebar, Rey dos Mogores (1582) and the Commentarius Mongolicae Legationis (1591), the first detailed European accounts on Mughal India written by Antoni de Montserrat, offers an updated and renewed reappraisal of the first Jesuit mission to the Mughal court (1580-1583). It also includes a reassessment of Montserrat’s career, highlighting his role both as a missionary and a diplomatic agent at the Mughal court